Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 12:00 AM

Months before authorities say Nikolas Cruz walked into his former high school and slaughtered 17 people, the troubled teen began showing what may have been warning signs he was bent on violence.
"Im going to be a professional school shooter," a YouTube user with the screen name "Nikolas Cruz" posted in September.
The 19-year-old had gotten expelled last year from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for undisclosed disciplinary reasons. A former Junior ROTC cadet, he bought a military-style AR-15 rifle.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 6:49 PM

Steve Bannon, who served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, was interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller over multiple days this week, NBC News has learned from two sources familiar with the proceedings.
Bannon spent a total of some 20 hours in conversations with the team led by Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as other issues that have arisen around the probe.
Bannon left his job as a senior White House adviser in August and returned to a leadership role at Breitbart, the right-wing news site based out of Washington. But he fell out of favor with the site’s financial backers, the Mercer family, after criticizing the president and his family in "Fire and Fury,” a book about the Trump administration published earlier this year by author Michael Wolff.
After a more than four-week stalemate, Bannon also returned to Capitol Hill Thursday to resume his interview with the House Intelligence Committee, which was halted when he earlier refused to answer key questions in the Russia probe.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 11:58 PM

An assistant football coach who was killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is being hailed a hero for shielding students from bullets as the gunman opened fire.
Aaron Feis is among the 17 people killed in Wednesday's shooting at the Parkland, Florida, school, according to the Twitter account of Douglas High's football team.
"It is with Great sadness that our Football Family has learned about the death of Aaron Feis. He was our Assistant Football Coach and security guard. He selflessly shielded students from the shooter when he was shot. He died a hero and he will forever be in our hearts and memories," the tweet read.
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Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 6:34 AM

The first thing that Braton Jurasevich noticed as he clambered down Mount Hood toward his fallen fellow mountain climber was the blood — a lot of it.
The critically injured climber, later be identified as Miha Sumi, was sprawled with his feet above his head on icy slope about 10,300 feet (3,140 meters) up the mountain.
Moments before, Sumi had slipped while descending from the summit and plummeted head over heels down a snowfield on Oregon's tallest peak — his fall witnessed by nearly a half-dozen other climbers who called 911 as they watched helplessly.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 2:01 PM

In the wake of the nation's deadliest school shooting in more than five years, President Donald Trump has urged people to report others' problematic behavior, saying the suspect in the South Florida shooting "was mentally disturbed" and that people who knew him "knew he had a big problem."
He addressed the nation just after 11 a.m. Thursday, saying that the suspected gunman had created a "scene of terrible violence, hatred and evil."
"No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school," he said from the White House. "No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning."
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Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 5:49 AM

People in Asia and around the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year on Friday with festivals, parades and temple visits to ask for blessings.
This year marks the year of the dog, one of the 12 animals in the Chinese astrological chart. People in Beijing celebrated with family feasts and visits to bustling temple fairs amid the mid-winter chill.
Ditan Park in the city center was the most vibrant, with empty tree branches festooned with red lanterns and traditional goods and foods being snapped up by the churning crowds.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 12:09 PM

A federal appeals court has found that President Donald Trump's latest ban on travelers from six largely Muslim countries is unconstitutional.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Thursday that it examined statements made by Trump and other administration officials, as well as the ban itself, and concluded it is "unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam."
The court upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Maryland who issued an injunction barring enforcement of the ban against people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen who have bona fide relationships with people in the U.S.
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Sheriff Scott Israel gave a detailed account of the initial timeline of the Florida high school shooting that left 17 dead and 14 injured. The ATF confirmed that the shooter had purchased the firearm used in the...
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Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:55 AM

The head of the Organization of American States' anti-corruption mission in Honduras resigned Thursday citing a lack of support from the regional body and the Honduran government.
Juan Jimenez Mayor said in a statement that the OAS didn't provide the resources necessary for the mission to be effective and noted that OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro did not receive him last month when he traveled to Washington.
The mission was established in 2016 after President Juan Orlando Hernandez bent to massive street protests calling for an international body to investigate corruption. The public wanted a United Nations commission similar to the one in Guatemala that has scored resounding prosecutions, but the OAS stepped in instead.
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Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:30 AM

The Trump administration is pushing what it calls a "bold new approach to nutrition assistance": replacing the traditional cash-on-a-card that food stamp recipients currently get with a pre-assembled box of canned foods and other shelf-stable goods dubbed "America's Harvest Box."
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney likened the box to a meal kit delivery service, and said the plan could save nearly $130 billion over 10 years. But the idea, tucked into President Donald Trump's 2019 budget, has caused a firestorm, prompting scathing criticism from Democrats and nutrition experts who say its primary purpose is to punish the poor.
"The main goal is to alleviate food insecurity, and the reason SNAP is so successful is because it gives low-income families the autonomy and dignity to make their own food choices," said Craig Gundersen, a professor in agricultural strategy at the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gundersen said people will leave the program as a result of the shift.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 4:20 PM

A Stanford law professor received a written rape threat and an unknown white substance in an envelope disguised as a party invitation Wednesday afternoon, prompting authorities to evacuate and shut down several rooms at the university's Neukom Building.
The professor targeted in the threat, Michele Dauber, is leading the charge to recall Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the Brock Turner sexual assault case.
"The recall campaign is not going to be intimidated," Dauber said in an interview with NBC Bay Area. "We are going to continue to stand with survivors, even when we face these kinds of threats."
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Friday, Feb 16, 2018 at 12:18 AM

The Broward County Sheriff's Office said the person who posted an image spreading on social media of an unidentified man seen holding a rifle with the caption "Round 2 of Florida tomorrow" has been arrested.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 9:50 PM

Two of three people who were in an SUV that was stopped and fired upon when it tried to enter the National Security Agency campus without authorization have been released, an FBI Spokesman said Thursday.
NSA police turned over the other person to the Howard County Sheriff's Office, because he was wanted on allegations of being behind on child support payments, said Dave Fitz, the spokesman for the FBI's Baltimore field office.
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Thursday, Feb 15, 2018 at 7:45 PM

The Vatican said Thursday that Pope Francis meets frequently with victims of sexual abuse, seeking to defuse a mounting scandal over his unbridled support for a Chilean bishop accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse.
Spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement Francis meets in private with victims individually or in groups several times a month to listen to their stories "and help them to heal their serious wounds."
In comments also released Thursday, Francis called clerical sex abuse a "humiliation" that exposes the church's "hypocrisy."
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